Saturday, November 13, 2010

Savory Saturday: Lessons in Domestication

I am not very domestic. Sadly, nothing makes my husband happier then when I am being domestic. Since I am the stay at home parent because bio majors don't make any money and since we know have a child in full day school, I am needing to pick up the slack become more involved in our evening routine. Since I loathe bedtime/bath-time meal planning and cooking it is.

So this is my new series, Savory Saturday, where I will share my "Lessons in Domestication". Alternative title: Chaos in the kitchen. I will list our menu and than break it down and give you our success. Did we stick with it, did the pick eater eat it? I will include links to all the recipes I can.

We have been sick for what feels like forever. So since I started this week with a recommitted to meal planning and cooking at home. Here was our plan:

The key to this working was that I was going to have to cook dinner. The key to me cooking dinner is that we must have the ingredients, a recipe and it can't involve meat unless it roasted or cooked in something. Here is how we did.

I did all the shopping on Monday to fill our pantry, that left only meat to be purchased and since I don't cook it, I'm not great at picking it out. When I sent my husband the list for what he needed to get on his way home from work it read "Pork Chops, or perhaps (hint hint) some nice red meat to grill for dinner". See we are experiencing above normal highs, like in the 70's, so we need to take advantage of that before winter moves in to stay. Also, I am pregnant and this baby only wants red meat.

Picky Eater Rating? 2 bites. (have I mentioned I have a picky eater?) She took the required one bit of steak (and acted like she was dying) and she ate one broccoli floret and declared them too crunchy. She still won't let potatoes touch her tongue.

Tuesday dad was supposed to not be home until late so we wanted a dinner that could be made quickly (since I would have to do school pick up) and he could reheat late. He turned out not working late and was able to do pick up. Which was great because this was not a quick recipe. First error, I had never cooked with Phyllo before and left it in the freezer. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook I was able to get it ready to use and unwrapped but it's fragile. I have a small kitchen and no patience, so that was not a good combination. Once the Phyllo was prepped it was quick work and they quick up fast. We also didn't read the recipe through and should have served it as a side. It was not enough food for a dinner.

Success? We had the Ratatoulie in the freezer and it was open, it got used, success. Dinner, eh? Left a lot to be deserved, it wasn't balanced and it was more work than I would do again for a weeknight dinner, but it wasn't pasta! Yea!

Picky Eater Rating? Zero Bites. She ate bread. Couldn't even get her to touch it.

Wednesday we weer supposed to roast a chicken. I had a huge roaster in the freezer. The thing about roasters in the freezer, if you don't take them out, you can't cook them. Also, mommy and peanut were out late at an event so daddy needed to start dinner and it needed to stay warm for us. He made Thursday's dinner instead. We have a love/hate relationship with homemade macaroni and cheese. Usually the kids hate it. Our mom hates it. Dad almost always loves it. So we are on a quest to find one that we all like, we may have found it.

Success? YES! (I think, hubs didn't mention problems baking it) We loved it! It had enough flavor for both parents and non-picky kids. Dad and son loved the Bacon and mom loved that there was no gross breadcrumbs in it. We substituted shells for elbows.

Picky eater Rating? 1 bite. Picky eater was tired and had a snack in the car to prevent a meltdown on the way home. She cried when she saw it because it was not "macky-roni". We got one shell in her mouth, we will be trying again though.

By Thursday the chicken had made it out of the freezer but was still frozen. It was also still gorgeous so we decided to grill salmon and make s'mores over a camp fire. We buy all our fish frozen from trader Joe's. Husband prepares it all with no recipe, I think he just uses salt pepper and lemon and I think he did something with dill too. Sorry. Next time I will stick closer to him and write down what he does. We served it with our favorite Trader Joe's Side: Harvest Grains Blend served our favorite way, over a bed of fresh baby spinach topped with Feta cheese.

(Blogger Fail, I should have taken a picture, it was such a pretty and healthy dinner!)

Success? YES! It was so delicious and healthy feeling. My son (5) said he loved everything it all "blended very nicely"

Picky Eater Rating? 2 bites. Required bites only. 1 of fish and 1 of the grains. She chewed on 1 piece of spinach and than spit it out.

S'mores, I ate 3. I love them. The great debate in our house? o burn or not to burn? I like mine burned, crispy on the outside, warm and mushy on the inside. Hubs, light golden brown over the whole marshmallow. He throws rejects in the fire. How do you like your s'mores?

Friday started with every intention of cooking that blasted chicken. However it's an enormous chicken and I had to start cooking it at 2:30ish which happened to be when I was hit with some major pregnancy illness. That combined with hubs not feeling well meant, well we totally coped out on dinner.Friday: Chicken Nuggets, Tater Tots (and to make it healthy) Trader Joe's Organic Frozen Peas (Mom had cereal and cheese & crackers)

Success? Um, negative, I mean it was chicken...

Picky Eater Rating? 1 bite & peas. Yes my child does not eat chicken nuggets and since a tater tot is potato it won't go in her mouth.

I have every intention of tackling that chicken today! But tune in next week to see if I really do!

2 comments:

Mmmm, the mac and cheese sounds good. My hubs would love that. Actually, he loves anything with bacon. Did I tell you that me made a french toast, peanut butter and bacon sandwich for lunch the other day? *gag*

That sounds like a GREAT menu! My poor Hubs has to cook diner every night. I'm not that domestic either and the thought of touching raw meat makes my skin crawl....he asked me last week just to rinse the raw chicken breasts,took one look at my face and took pity on me. I "platted" the lettuce instead:)